I'm Perfect for the Job, But No One Got Back to Me...

I received the following letter today and I'd like to post it, along with my response, because I think more people should see it:

"...I got your information off of LinkedIn and have a strong resume, but for whatever reason, I'm having troubles connecting with employers and recruiters.

I'm sure you have a million people who contact you for resume and cover letter advice, but please allow me to be the proverbial one in a million who might attract your attention for a critique. 
Thank you for your consideration and time."

my response:
I took a look at the resume and truthfully, you did a great job on it.  I really can't point to anything that I'd change about it.  The reason you're having difficulty connecting with employers and recruiters has nothing to do with the resume itself.

What you're experiencing is what so many job seekers I talk to are  experiencing.  There is something wrong with the machine -- you have hundreds of businesses saying they can't find qualified employees and thousands of people who can't get jobs.  Something's wrong.

There are probably many reasons.  Some good ones are how fast technology have made many people's skills obsolete.  And then there is the issue of the jobs that have gone overseas.   My favorite reason to blame it on is the ease in which one can contact anyone they want to through the internet.  It's just too easy to click "enter".  So recruiters and employers get hundreds of resumes in response to job ads they post.  This causes two things to happen:  they can't look at everything; and they get the idea that out of the hundreds of resumes, they should be able to find someone PERFECT.

My advice then, is to network (digitally and with your physical body), when applying, try and get your resume into the paws of the person doing the hiring and get don't be afraid of being very creative about that.  And don't be too selective about where you send your resume --Even if you're perfect for the job, there will be another 150 people sending their resume so until this machine gets fixed, you need to cosmically balance it out and increase the number of resumes you send out. 
(I know this increases the resume carbon footprint, but till the machine gets fixed, I believe this is what you have to do).

Hope this is somewhat helpful!  If nothing else, I hope it's encouraging that there are some recruiters out there that open their emails!

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